


Chef's Salads

by virginianwolfsnake



Category: Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Minor Character Death, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9148618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginianwolfsnake/pseuds/virginianwolfsnake
Summary: Years after the fatal performance of La Forza Del Destino, Olaf finally understands Kit. Written for the Tumblr prompt: "He/she doesn't understand you like I do."





	

He still can’t look at her. She’s inextricably associated with that night now, maybe forever, and his senses have bound her voice and her eyes tightly together with the clammy chill on his mother’s skin and the smell of the blood on his father’s shirt, on his hands, on the polished wood. He can hear the words, vaguely understand when she says _you have to stop this_ , but it’s like his ears aren’t making the connection with his brain anymore.

She isn’t her and he isn’t him - they’re just people playing characters. That’s all any of it is.

“I didn’t choose this,” she says, among a hundred other nonsense excuses designed to lessen her own guilt. “I was part of it, but I didn’t put it all together. I didn’t want this, but you _know_ it was necessary.”

He wishes he could find the energy to tell her how stupid she sounds, but he can’t. It would be pointless, anyway. She already knows. She might not have pulled the trigger, might not have formulated the plan, but she knows that doesn’t matter. No amount of wriggling will get her off that hook.

“And that girl,” she says bitterly. He recognizes the hurt at the edges of her tone, but it doesn’t move him like it used to. “What good do you really think that’s going to do?”

She is ridiculous and pathetic, bringing that up, as though his dalliances are really any comparison to the blood on her hands. The way she has the audacity, the _nerve_ to stand there and make it sound like _he’s_ the one who’s hurt her rather than the other way around… admittedly, it stings a little, but he can’t bring himself to be angry. He just can’t bring himself to care at all.

“She isn’t like us,” Kit hisses. “She doesn’t understand - the things we went through, the life we’ve led. She doesn’t understand you like I do.”

She must be desperate, because that’s the most nonsensical thing she’s ever said. He can’t even begin to understand what she means, because the very last thing he needs is any more of _this_. All this violent, gruesome betrayal for the sake of some mythical greater good that none of them understand. His damaged upbringing hasn’t helped him to understand or accept the way she kissed him goodbye on Tuesday night and murdered his family on the Friday.

And if he’s honest, it isn’t even the act itself that disgusts him. The _really revolting_ part is the way she stands there with her jaw set, still so determined that they – that _she_ \- somehow did the right thing. The last thing he needs is an emotional attachment to anyone else so delusional. If he’s going to be a bad person, he vows he’ll have the decency to be upfront about it.

Eventually, because he doesn’t know how else to respond, he chuckles. This isn’t the brave, intelligent girl he fell in love with when they were only children. This isn’t the girl who defended him, even at his worst. This isn’t the girl who laughed despite herself at his overly theatrical humour, the girl who tricked their way out of trouble in ways that never failed to astound him, the girl who whispered that she loved him and looked so disappointed in herself for the weakness – and he isn’t boy that wanted her to. This is a contemptible, lying hypocrite who can’t accept who she really is.

That’s all she is. He wonders how he was ever fooled.

Kit’s lips twitch downwards, and he can see that she’s on the verge of tears. In a past life, perhaps he might have comforted her. Now it makes him laugh harder.

“I understand,” she says, over the laughter he smothers into the back of his hand. “I know this must have hurt. I didn’t even make the decision. You _know_ how sorry I am. But you can’t let this turn you into the person your father -”

He doesn’t even realize he’s moving, but out of nowhere his hand darts for the closest ornament - a heavy claw-legged candle-holder - and he hurls it, poorly aimed, across the hall. Kit doesn’t even have to move, but let’s out a shaky, broken breath when it clatters against the wall. As the candle rolls out of its holder, he sees that the flame has gone out, and thinks _how appropriate_.

“Get out,” he breathes, and Kit doesn’t need to be told twice. 

* * *

One second he’s muttering to himself, _bloody women_ , rooting in his pocket for his car keys so he can get the fuck _out_ of this God-forsaken carnival for a few hours, and the next something is thrust hard against his ribs, so roughly that the breath is knocked out of him and he has to reach out and steady himself against the bonnet.

Some long-forgotten survival instinct must kick in, because he retains the presence of mind to identify the feeling of flat, cold metal through his shirt, and to hold still. A hand presses between his shoulder blades, and he gets the feeling that his assailant is smaller than he is. His current list of enemies is too long for that detail to narrow it down.

“Where are they?” a voice asks.

“Who?” he rasps, stupidly, and gets another sharp jab in the ribs from the barrel of the gun for his idiocy.

“You _know_ who,” it accuses, frustrated, and there’s something in that tone that makes long-buried memories begin to resurface. Distant memories of a girl who was better at codes than he was, but would never explain them - the girl who always tried to pull him up to her level rather than stoop down to his.

In his shock, he breaks her grip and twists around, forgetting that it might be the death of him. She’s older, her hair is longer, and her glasses are a different shape. But none of that changes anything.

“I’m not messing around,” she growls, lips set in a thin line, eyes as hard as steel. As if he needs proof of that, she keeps the gun pointed between his ribs. “You’ve gone too far this time. Where _are_ they?”

“If I knew,” he spits, after he regains his ability to speak. “Why would I tell you?”

He gets another sharp jab, and there’s a click as she turns the safety off. “How much clearer can I make it?”

For he first time in a long time, he doesn’t even need to lie.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Escaping disguised as medical practitioners - and a patient - from the fire at Heimlich Hospital, the last I heard. Though, of course, I know how to find out.”

Kit’s shoulders slump, just the tiniest bit, because she could always tell when he was lying. But God knows he’s changed, and she looks unsure of herself.

“I don’t believe you,” she says, but the pressure of the gun relents.

He shrugs. “Pull the trigger, then.”

Of course, she doesn’t. A simple gunshot would have been too predictable.   
Besides, she hasn’t even lectured him yet.

“This has gone too far,” she hisses, though she seems to have accepted that there won’t be any bloodshed tonight, because she pockets the pistol. “It isn’t for me to step in, but I will, if -”

He can’t resist. “Shirking responsibility?” he teases hollowly. “That’s so _unlike_ you, Snicket.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” she warns, icily, without even the slightest shadow of shame, and he can’t _wait_ to call her on it, can’t wait to remind her that _she’s_ the one who -

\- and then, suddenly, he remembers. The prison cell, the poison, the meticulously plotted case of mistaken identity. _It was necessary_ , he thinks, and then, sickeningly, he realizes the irony. He wonders if she knows - but then, of course she does. The Punctilio will have seen to that. A part of him formulates an argument that this makes them even, finally, but another part of him knows, for reasons he can’t articulate, that it doesn’t. He’s worse.

_You caused this_ , _Kit_ , he thinks, _you made me into this_. But he vowed he’d be honest, if he was ever as bad as she was. It feels uncomfortably like he’s forgotten how.

For the first time in as long as he can remember, he’s speechless.

“You won’t get away with this,” she breathes, an all-too-calm warning. She raises her arm to tell him something else, but all of a sudden he catches sight of the curve to her waist underneath the trench coat and he loses the ability to hear her.

He’s heard whispers about one of the Denouement brothers, presumably Frank, but he hasn’t bothered listening - or at least he’s tried not to, because what does it matter to him now? But now that it’s real, right in front of him, there’s a strange pulling feeling in his stomach, like someone’s trying to tug his soul right out of him.

She catches him looking, and wraps her coat closer around her.

“Congratulations,” he croaks sarcastically, and unexpectedly gets a cracking slap across the mouth for daring to comment. He supposes, for one reason or another, he’s had that coming.

“There’ll be no money left to inherit,” she snaps, furious. “So it’ll be of no interest to you.”

One hand across his split lip, he lets out a muffled chuckle. “Understood.”

In the long moment of silence, he wonders whether he has the presence of mind to put the jumbled thoughts in his head into coherent sentences. He thinks about Kit, some kind of warped, ruined saint with all her broken morals and shades of grey, surrounded by all of her foolish righteous holier-than-thou comrades, whiter than white, and he swallows heavily, because _finally_ he understands what she meant.

_He doesn’t understand you like I do though, does he?_ he thinks, but she turns her back before he gets the chance to say it out loud.


End file.
